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In the following interview, BJ sits down with his friend and mentor, Wes Guckert. Wes is the Founder & CEO of The Traffic Group, one of the nation's leading traffic engineering, transit, and transportation planning firms. He is an expert in traffic engineering and transportation planning – a technical adviser in traffic analysis, traffic signal design, traffic circulation, access studies, automated and robotic parking systems, and transit planning. Since founding TTG, Wes has played a major role in more than 8,000 projects; directing the design and implementation of traffic access systems throughout the United States and internationally, from Canada, Mexico, and the Bahamas, to Indonesia, Dubai, South Africa, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and China.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Movie: “Pay it Forward” starring Haley Joel Osment
Dr. Ben Carson- “Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story”
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Leadership Blueprints is a podcast dedicated to helping leaders align teams, navigate chaos, and accomplish the mission. Hosted by BJ Kraemer—West Point graduate, combat veteran, and President & CEO of MCFA—this show dives into the principles, stories, and strategies behind effective leadership.
With a background in military service and experience leading teams in business, infrastructure, and complex projects, BJ understands that success comes down to execution, adaptability, and leading people well. Through in-depth interviews with accomplished leaders across business, sports, the military, and beyond, Leadership Blueprints will help you bring your vision to reality on projects that shape communities and industries.
Whether you’re leading in the boardroom, on the field, in the military, or within your own organization, this podcast is designed to provide the tools and mindset needed to lead with clarity, resilience, and purpose. Subscribe now and start building your Leadership Blueprint.
If you're an entrepreneurial public servant, this podcast is for you. Welcome to Inspiring People and Places where we interview national leaders in the architectural, engineering, construction, and development industry in an effort to educate, innovate and inspire industry professionals to disrupt the status quo, improve their project teams and steward public and private investments more effectively. I'm your host, BJ Kramer, President and CEO of MCFA. And in today's episode, we are sitting down with my friend and business partner, Wes Guckert. Wes, how are doing today?
Speaker 2:Number one, thank you for that introduction. I am spectacular. And Vijay and I have known each other for a relatively short period of time, probably two years maybe. We've recently become engaged more so with one another in lots of different ways and I'm thrilled, thrilled to be part of this today, BJ.
Speaker 1:We're excited to have you Wes. I am very excited for you to share how your business got started but before we go there, I think it's worth saying that Wes signed up for the podcast despite having COVID-nineteen.
Speaker 2:I'm very blessed.
Speaker 1:Wes is locked up in his bedroom asymptomatic but hopefully it stays that way. So Wes, as you know, and as we talked about, discover, navigate, accelerate is the MCFA way, and it is the layout of the podcast. So tell the, tell our audience a little bit about who Wes Guckert is and and how we got to this point in your, in your career.
Speaker 2:Do you want me to how far back do you want me to go?
Speaker 1:As far as you think is meaningful, I I think the part I'm most excited about you sharing is what we shared between you and Walt Petrie at the restaurant a couple of weeks ago. But I think it's important to hear how you got into the industry. We've got some young audience members, maybe in college, maybe just getting out of college. So I love for some of the senior guests to talk through how they got into the industry to start.
Speaker 2:Sure. So here I was getting out of high school, Baltimore Polytechnic and Engineering High School in Baltimore. And we were in the middle of the Vietnam War, and it was time for me to go to college. I went there for about six months, determined that college was not for me. I knew that if had I decided to drop out of college, which I did, I had a very low number for the Army, and instead of being drafted in the Army and being a foot soldier in Vietnam, I enlisted in the United States Air Force.
Speaker 2:At that time, as you may know, there were testing going on. What is it that you're good at? Where could you help support the Vietnam War mission? And I was offered a job as a Vietnamese linguist, and that's where I started. I went to Vietnamese language school at the Defense Language Institute in Washington, D.
Speaker 2:C, and there I spent forty hours a week for eight months studying, reading, writing Vietnamese, learning the language from several Vietnamese teachers. I then went to different schools in the Air Force and became a crew member on a C-one 130, C-one 135, doing Vietnamese stuff that you do in the defense industry for the Air Force. I spent eighteen months in Vietnam. During that time, I started going to night school because I had dropped out of college. Then returned So
Speaker 1:tell me about night school while you're in Vietnam. Well,
Speaker 2:there's classes and I spent eighteen months in Southeast Asia, probably twelve months permanent flying out of Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa, the other six months flying out of Cameron Bay. And it was what happens today, that is you're going to night school online or using books and taking tests that way. So that's where I really started my college degree while I was in Southeast Asia. The last year in the Air Force I spent at the National Security Agency at Fort Meade doing the same thing I was doing while I was in the air. I had 110 combat missions in Vietnam.
Speaker 2:And when I got back to The States, I got married. The last twelve months I spent at NSA going to night school, going to NSA during the day, night school, and working at Giant Food at night. Ultimately, that last year I finished, I went to work for the Maryland State Highway Administration in the materials testing lab. That was the worst job and the greatest motivator I could have I could ever have had, bending rebar, crushing concrete cylinders, looking for compression strength. And I spent about six months, only six months, doing that in the lab when a notice came out that they were forming a new division at State Highway called the Traffic Safety Division.
Speaker 2:So I raised my hand and said, I'll do anything. I don't even know what it is, but I'll do it. Get me out of this testing lab. So I got a job with Maryland State Highway Administration Traffic Safety Division. I worked there for six years, getting as much education as I could, both on the job and at various places, including University of Maryland, University of Tennessee, Northwestern University, and Evanston, Illinois, all relating to traffic engineering and transportation planning.
Speaker 2:So after about six years, I found a firm in the Gaithersburg, Washington, D. C. Area that was looking for someone to help him grow his single person traffic engineering business, so I joined him. After about six years, I had helped the guy grow the business. We had about 12 employees and revenues had quadrupled over that time that I was helping him.
Speaker 2:And I met a guy named Walt Petrie, and he was a developer. We were doing a significant amount of developer traffic impact study work. I met Walt Petrie in Towson, Maryland, and we hit it off. He too was a Vietnam vet. He had been out of Vietnam for probably fifteen years by that time.
Speaker 2:He was representing property owners, landowners, developers, and developing a major shopping center in Towson. And we became very fast friends, and he said to me one day, he said, This is your company, right? I said, No. I said, I don't even have an engineering degree. And he said, I'm liking you even more.
Speaker 2:He said, I don't have a degree either. So he said to me, he said, You're the face of this company. How much of the company do you own? I said, I don't know, 3%, 4%, 5%. He said, That's crazy.
Speaker 2:He said, Tell me how much money you need and let's see if we can get you started in your own business. So I went home to my wife, Tony, and my two young children, and I started figuring out that if I had $13,000 the first month, I'd be able to make it in business. So I called Walt. We met. He said, meet me at Clyde's in Columbia restaurant.
Speaker 2:We met. He gave me a check for $13,000. Ten years later, I found out that was all the money he had at that time. I drained his bank account. And as you know, BJ, he tells a story that when I tell the story, he looks around, he said, he always says, Did you know?
Speaker 2:Did you look at my checking account? Did you know how much money I had? I said, Absolutely not. And he said, Well, that was everything I had. And I thought the guy was wealthy at the time.
Speaker 2:Drove around in a black Carrera Porsche, looked and talked the part of a very, very wealthy person, but he gave me all the money he had. And if anyone's going to be listening to this podcast, you need to know if you find a friend, a true friend, never ever let them go, whether it's male or female, because I have found my true friend in Walt Petrie. And fortunately, we remain best friends today, still hang out together. I performed his latest wedding ceremony. I'll be the officiant at his daughter's wedding this New Year's Eve, and I'm blessed, very, very blessed to be able to call somebody like Walt a friend.
Speaker 2:So that's how I got started in the business.
Speaker 1:Funny enough, I got to give a quick shout out to Walt because he emailed me right before I was getting on this show. So I don't know if you gave him a heads up that you were getting on with me, but shout out to Walt, who's also a Corps of Engineers officer. Yeah. A former Corps of Engineers officer.
Speaker 2:Walt happened to be one of the youngest, he says the youngest second lieutenant in the Army Corps at 19 years old, running a group of people, building roads and bridges through the jungles of Vietnam when he was there. Great guy, very lucky, very lucky to know him. And no, I did not tell him I was getting on the air with you. That's just coincidence. They just keep on coming, the coincidences.
Speaker 2:Walt got me started in our company, and of course, like most companies, we started with one, and we've grown to as much as 90 people, I think we're 80 people now, with a company, a nationwide presence where we've got government contracts with state departments of transportation at 12 or 13 states around the country. We do a significant amount of that type of work and then a significant amount of traffic study work for private developers, and very recently, as a result of my SD status doing the same type of thing for government agencies.
Speaker 1:If I could ask you, what was the hardest point in the business ownership process and when did you talk about going from one to 10 employees or 10 to 20 employees and sometimes it's from the first dollar you make to being able to pay yourself a full salary. What were some of the pivot points in your career so far?
Speaker 2:So I think the pivot point, and that's a good way to frame it, BJ, the pivot point for me stands out. I started the company in 1985. In 1992, there was a real estate crisis caused by the old court savings and loan where it's the same type of thing that happened, quite frankly, in 2007, 2008. There was a crisis caused by the old court savings and loan where they were going around lending money to people who couldn't afford it, much like banks were doing with individuals with homes. And that was a crisis and a pivot point for me that just sticks out because it was at that time in 1992 that I had to lay people off.
Speaker 2:And it was quite frankly the worst, worst, worst experience I ever went through. And it was at that point in time when we were doing 90% private work, 10% government work, that I said, this is not going to work. I cannot go into people's offices and tell them they've lost their job, meaning they're going lose their home, their car, their family, their apartment. I never wanted to go through that again. So I made the pivot right then and there that I was never going to do that again.
Speaker 2:And as a result, we went from being a 10% government company to today where we're probably a 75% government company because the government, have found, in my opinion, is always going to have some kind of money, and living in Washington DC area, you really are much more recession proof than living in other parts of the country. So when I made that pivot in 1992 to no longer be beholden upon the private sector, to me, that was a turning point in our business.
Speaker 1:That's a good pivot because or segue into the next section, which is the navigate. And two things I want to throw out there here is we're always looking for a leadership and or engineering project story from your career that teaches our audience something, whether it's the junior employees looking at how they build their career or our real target is helping our public agencies think a little bit more entrepreneurial, think a little more innovatively. And it's a great segue because you do balance both the private sector where we love the entrepreneurial spirit and the vision of our developers, but we also can get caught up in their bank accounts. And our public sector engineers and infrastructure champions, we're always trying to push them to get a little more aggressive, think a little more outside the box and do things more innovatively. So do you have any leadership or project experience you want to share?
Speaker 2:I'm sure I do, but let me start with this. When you are an entrepreneur and you're getting started, many entrepreneurs think they know it all, and one of the things that came out very strongly for me was I was about fifteen years into our company. So it was around the year 2000 that I was getting to a burnout point. Now, the company's been around now for thirty six years, so this was over twenty years ago. I'm saying to myself, man, I am tired of being everything, everything to everybody.
Speaker 2:I'm really tired of having people come in and complain, whether it's a man or a woman, coming in saying, well, it's kind of like kids. He's looking at me. He's hitting me. He's touching me. And I got tired and worried about that.
Speaker 2:I also got tired of spending my time getting a cramp in my hand signing pay signing checks, both paychecks and business checks to keep the business running. And so talk about another pivot. I finally figured out that I didn't know everything, and that I talked to some people, and they said, You know what, Wes? Why don't you hire a professional? Hire a CEO coach?
Speaker 2:And I said, CEO coach? What's a coach going to be able to do for me? Well, changed my life is what a coach did for me. It made me understand why people hire me because at that time, and maybe now, some people consider me an expert. And while a land use attorney knows a whole lot about a lot of different things, whether it's about engineering and traffic and stormwater management and forest protection and on and on and on, they're not the expert in one thing.
Speaker 2:They are much more of a generalist. And so I hired a CEO coach, and what we did was go through the organization and figure out, do we have people that shouldn't be on the bus? And if they should be on the bus, are they in the right seat on the bus? And I was telling a story the other day. I'm involved in a lot of different charities, and you may hear about one a little bit later, And one of the folks that supports one of our charities was Jerome Benes.
Speaker 2:Jerome Benes, as you know, a Pittsburgh Steeler known as the bus. And it became really simple to me to understand whether I needed to have the right people on the bus and are they in the right seat. So I have a picture of the bus and myself in my conference room to remind me that not everybody belongs on the bus, and certainly people are not in the right seat on the bus. And that's what turned my company around about twenty years ago, because I went and went through some exercises with the CEO coach to understand the different personalities of the people. And what is a really good job for some people is not a really good job for other people.
Speaker 2:And so we went through an exercise where I figured out that I could find somebody who liked to do what I didn't like to do and vice versa. And because of that, I moved a couple of people around on the bus. I got rid of people and got them off the bus, which was one of the hardest things to do. And that to me was a big pivot point for me, understanding that I needed to get the right people in the right seat. Thinking that you know it all is the wrong thing.
Speaker 2:You need to hire professionals, CEO coach, business development coach, I've got a peer advisory board of half a dozen different people from different walks of life that look at our business and looks at it differently than I would look at it and says, you know what, Wes? Why are you doing it this way? Money's almost free now. Why don't you take and go back to your bank? Well, there are things that you don't even think about because they're staring you in the face, but if you've got if you don't if you if you say to yourself, yeah, I don't know it all, and I'll take somebody else's expertise, you don't have to take it.
Speaker 2:You don't have to take their advice. But what you do have to take, you have to take their advice. You may not have to do exactly what they tell you to do. And so you have to learn to pivot to take other people's advice.
Speaker 1:I love that. And especially being professional services firms where we're advising other leaders, they're looking at us and our teams as their advisory boards. And one of the things at MCFA we try to do is not just improve the project team, but improve the organizational health, because I think there's both leadership and project challenges that come along. Mike Steadman, who's our producer, and I actually met through our CEO coach, Bill Watkins. So shout out to Bill Watkins and the Lion's Pride.
Speaker 1:Wes, moving into the Accelerate round. This is more of a Q and A session. Long form answer, short form answer, whatever hits you. But number one is current events or public policy issue that you're actively involved in.
Speaker 2:I am, as you know, actively involved in a number of veterans organizations. I'm heavily involved in Folds of Honor. I've been heavily involved in the Catch and Lift Foundation, the Gary Sinise Foundation, and heavily involved in the Tunnels to Towers organization. Since I became a service disabled veteran owned small business, I made it a pledge that I would give back to vets more now than I ever have. And that's what I do as it relates to veterans.
Speaker 2:I'm deeply involved in children's education and in drug rehab as well. There's an organization in Baltimore called Love in the Trenches about, and it helps parents and siblings of those that have had the unfortunate overdose situation, and parents that need to be able to speak to somebody, and children, siblings that have lost their brother or sister because of an overdose. A big, big deal for me. There are two other organizations and society issues, and these are all society issues that I'm talking about, whether it's veterans that need help or whether it's an organization like the Carson Scholars Fund. I've been involved in Ben Carson's Carson Scholars Fund for about fifteen years, and during that time, we went from giving away about a thousand scholarships to our 10,000 scholar this year.
Speaker 2:And it's about children not just because they're smart, but because they have to prove that they are a good human being. These kids are our future leaders, and we start by giving scholarships in the fourth grade up through the eleventh grade. And they have to not only do they need the three seven five GPA, but they have to write an essay saying why, what they've done to help society. These kids are absolutely amazing. Who they are, what they are, what they've done once they've graduated, and we've helped them go to college.
Speaker 2:There's another organization that's near and dear to my heart called the Believe in Tomorrow Foundation. It's to help children and families that are going through childhood cancer. And this organization, the Believe in Tomorrow Foundation, provides respite housing for these kids and their families who who may be going on their last vacation. And BIT, Believe in Tomorrow, has respite homes, primarily on the East Coast, but also in Western Maryland, in Deep Creek Lake, in Colorado, Bethany, Ocean City. And they also provide housing for families when these children come to Johns Hopkins University from around the world.
Speaker 2:And children that have cancer will be in the hospital for a day or two at a time, but may not be leaving the area for a month. And so rather than have the children or the parents have to rent a hotel room or not be there, the Believe in Tomorrow Foundation gives the families and the children a nice place to live while they're getting treatment from Johns Hopkins. So societal issues have everything to do with us taking care of our veterans and taking care of our children, no matter what shape they're in, whether they're sick or whether they need an education. Those to me are the public policy societal issues that need to be dealt with and that I'm involved in.
Speaker 1:You hit me hard with a couple of those, but I have to go back to your navigate challenge. How do you find the time and the energy to put into all of those organizations while you're running a business?
Speaker 2:Well, you were gonna ask me about my favorite quote and why, and it's it's all about the fact that I think I've become very organized. And you have to be organized in order to find time, to get back to others. And there's a movie, my favorite movie of all time is a movie called Pay It Forward. And if you haven't seen it, I recommend that everyone in this listening audience go see Pay It Forward at least one time, because it is the kind of movie that gives me inspiration to want to do what I do to help the children and to help the veterans in our world. And I and I become I have become very, very proficient in getting things done, and I I do not delay.
Speaker 2:I do not hesitate. And if we're looking for a way to explain to young entrepreneurs or government, do it and do it now. Because the sooner you get it done, the more time you're going to have to pay it forward and give back to others.
Speaker 1:I think Wes was talking to me. I think he is the most responsive partner I have, and I wish I could say the same thing, or I wish he could say the same thing about me, but I'm still getting organized. Wes, next question. Must read book. I'd like the must read Well, no, you didn't give me your quote.
Speaker 2:Well, my quote was pay it forward.
Speaker 1:Pay it
Speaker 2:forward.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:The must read book to me is Gifted Hands by Doctor. Benjamin Carson. Doctor. Carson and I have been acquaintances for the last fifteen years since I've been heavily involved in his foundation, that scholarship foundation. And if you want to understand what it's like to grow up in abject poverty and rise to the most prolific pediatric neurosurgeon in the world, you've got to read Gifted Hands and understand what made Ben Carson, who he is today, what he was, and where he started.
Speaker 2:And because it is truly a story about poverty, lack of education, and growing up to be the best of the best by studying and reading and excelling at everything that you do. And so Gifted Hands, Doctor. Benjamin Parsons, it really is a must read book for not only individuals, but for children, regardless of their age. Once they can start to read, children should be understanding that it's not about black and white, it's not about rich and poor, it's about knowing that you can do something because you set your mind to it. I want to give you an example, something that most people don't even know about different people.
Speaker 2:Here, Ben Carson couldn't even read or write, and his mother could not read or write. But she made him and his brothers read books and write book reports. And she made them do book reports every week and give them to her, and she would pretend that she could read them and she couldn't. And so- She'd
Speaker 1:mark them up as if she was grading them, but she Exactly. Didn't know what she was
Speaker 2:You know the story.
Speaker 1:I did. What an appropriate book for a must read book.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Here, this is a guy that performed brain surgery in uterine, meaning that the baby was still in the womb and he performed brain surgery to save this child. Think about who you are and what you have to know to be at hands that you must have to be able to do that type of thing. So that's my must read book.
Speaker 1:Remarkable story. I agree. All right, dead or alive, if you could hang out with three people for a day, who would they be and what would you do?
Speaker 2:Well, it's hard to pick just three people because I admire so many people, but can you sitting at the feet of the Lord, with Jesus Christ and talking to him about life, about death, and about the kind of person that we need to be. I look at Elon Musk, and while I do not admire a lot of things that he does, I do admire the fact that he has come along and created an amazing company that is diverse in so many ways. I look at Jeff Bezos, again, not politically, but I think about what he's done with Amazon, and what people don't understand, what many people don't understand is that Amazon is more than just an ecommerce company. It's it's business after business after business, and at any one time, he's got about a 100 different inventions that his company is working on. That is amazing to me that these people are so driven that they're able to do what they've done.
Speaker 2:So dead or alive, those are the people I would like to hang out with and interview to understand more about how and why they've been so successful.
Speaker 1:Now more about you, legacy. What do you want on your tombstone?
Speaker 2:I want people to know or tell me that I've been a nice person and that I've done what I could to help humanity. That's what I want them to know.
Speaker 1:Awesome. And then last, the time is yours to share with our audience anything you want to share, Wes.
Speaker 2:I really suggest that you take the time to give back. I really suggest that you hire experts to help you in your endeavors. Whether you're government or whether you're private sector, you really do not know everything. You may think you know everything, but you really do not know everything. There's nothing wrong with asking advice and hiring experts.
Speaker 2:Those are the words that I have for young engineers and problem solvers.
Speaker 1:Wes, thanks so much for your time. This has been unbelievable. I got to know you even more. Really appreciate you taking the time.
Speaker 2:My pleasure, and thank you very, very much, and all the best to you. Art and Mike, I saw you clap on one of my things that I was saying. CJ, thank you very much. Thank Thanks everyone.
Speaker 1:If you enjoy the show, do us a favor and subscribe to inspiring people and places on iTunes, Spotify, or your favorite podcast hosting platform. We'd also greatly appreciate if you left us a review and shared this with other entrepreneurial public servants. Be sure to visit our website, www.mcfaglobal.com. Sign up for our newsletter. If you want to learn more about the MCFA DNA, check out our case studies.
Speaker 1:And we are hiring lots of positions open, junior and senior, architects, plant architects, plant engineers, transportation, military construction, real estate development. You name it. We have opportunities, interns to senior professionals. Check us out, send us a note and, come join the team. Until next time.
Speaker 1:Have a great rest of your week. Thanks everybody.